


May You Suffer Each Other’s Company

by Aryllia



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cussing, F/F, F/M, Female Team, M/M, motivational speech by Soldier, no raccoons were harmed in this fic, which is to say silly violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryllia/pseuds/Aryllia
Summary: “So your Soldier is actually getting married?”“Yes.” he glared resentfully at the cigarette she had taken before lighting a new one.“To an actual, real woman? Not a cardboard cut-out?”"Very real, I’m afraid."Originally posted as a wedding gift to Dusty Old Roses on tumblr, under the title Dusty Old Wedding.
Relationships: Sniper/Spy (Team Fortress 2), Soldier/Zhanna (Team Fortress 2), Spy/Spy (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	May You Suffer Each Other’s Company

**Author's Note:**

> Sandra Espinoza, aka Dusty Old Roses, is one of my favourite voice actors and I found out about her through videos of genderbent team fortress 2 characters where she provided many of the voices.  
> Her official website: https://dustyoldroses.com/  
> Her youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DustyOldRoses

**Outside the Female Experimental Module building**

The upside to being part of a rather obscure, top-secret and all too often ridiculed experiment in gender equality (or testosterone poisoning versus PMS) was that no one in charge had at all remembered that you were holed up in a base when the ownership switched to Gray Mann. The downside was that no one in charge remembered that you were holed up in a base and apparently you’d lose out on quite an adventure brimming with gossip material. 

Not even Miss Pauling had remembered them. Spy really wanted to be upset about that detail, but she only had her counterpart at hand and he _liked_ when she throttled him against the wall. She settled for stealing his cigarette.

“So your Soldier is actually getting married?” she asked, taking the opportunity to talk French without being yelled at for it by Ms Patriot Of The Year. 

“Yes.” he glared resentfully at the cigarette she had taken before lighting a new one.

“To an actual, _real_ woman? Not a cardboard cut-out?”

"Very real, I’m afraid." 

"And she is the sister of your Heavy?”

“Her name is Zhanna. Apparently she grew up hunting bears and KGB agents.”

“A match made in heaven, I’m sure.” Spy gave her counterpart a sidelong glance. He wore the kind of frazzled resignation usually associated with babysitting Scout. 

“Well, it’s a match, that much is beyond doubt. So, you’ll bring your team with you to the ceremony? All things considered there isn’t much reason for any of you to stay here any longer.”

“I suppose so, if we can wrench Demo from the inebriation experiments she keeps in the bathroom.”

“Very well. Ah, and before I forget - have you noticed anything strange about your medic during the last few months?”

Spy nearly inhaled the whole cigarette at the least discreet inquiry she had received since last time her male counterpart had dropped by for a visit. 

“Well, she sewed cat ears on Scout in a fit of boredom, but nothing out of the ordinary. What has happened to your medic that brings you to ask?”

“Ah, never mind. Just remember to wash your Sniper before the wedding.”

“Of course, I’m sure she won’t mind me being thorough. Did _your_ Sniper appreciate the lingerie you stole from me last time?” She did not actually say “cocksucker” but she was certain that he could read it in her eyes and yes, there was that ugly smirk.

"As it turned out, the sheer lace wasn’t quite his style my dear slut counterpart.”

And just like that they were opposite instead of next to each other.

“Says the cheap man in the silk shirt!”

“Frigid bitch!”

“Amateurish fool!”

“Angular-”

“Effeminate-”

_“Manipulative-!”_

That was when Scout walked out, possibly to see what the noise was about, possibly by chance. Either way the little brat was most unwelcome.

“Yo, Engie! Cock-Spook’s back an’ he an’ Frenchie are rutting ‘gainst the wall again!”

“GO TO HELL!”

* * *

“Crazy bitch I will stab your diaphragm!” Spy swore from under her pillow. Sniper grumbled something affirmative from the topside of the pillow.

The day of the wedding would arrive bright and sunny with baking heat, but the revere rang through the FEM base long before sunrise. Soldier, apparently regardless of her opinions on RED Soldier, had taken it upon herself to have her FEM ladies SHINING LIKE THE PERFECT MILITARY EXAMPLE THEY ARE to SHOW THOSE WEAK-WILLED UTERUS-DEPRIVED SCHOOLBOYS WHAT REAL SOLDIERS LOOK LIKE. Spy was quite certain that she could have managed that much without being woken at three in the god-damned morning and contemplated showing Soldier’s bugle down her throat on her way to the showers.

Heavy solved the problem for them by neatly pulling the bugle to a straight pipe and then calmly wrapping it around Soldier’s neck. The ensuing wrestling match gave the rest of the team a brief respite while they showered, or in Scout’s case, slept another five minutes under the showerhead until Engineer turned off the hot water.

The mercenaries all styled themselves as best as they could, but “buttfuck nowhere” (thank you for articulating that, Scout) didn’t exactly provide high-end clothes retailers. Thankfully Sniper still had her tux from their little class and style experiment and Spy wouldn’t be Spy if she didn’t have at least one evening dress that could be suitable repurposed, so they at least were covered. The others were on their own though and no Scout, you may not borrow “some bling”.

Given that they would attend a mercenary wedding, Spy made certain to wear her best holsters clearly visible. The whole team had spent the last week polishing and buffing assorted guns, knives, axes, wrenches, boots, helmets and the gunslinger. Scout had even wiped the gore from the nails in her bat and Heavy could be seen meticulously oiling her arms like a bodybuilder preparing for display.

They had all carefully picked out their very best hats several days in advance.

They considered bringing Sniper’s van to the wedding for the extra travel comforts, but while the Badlands was not that far away, Sniper’s van wasn’t exactly in pristine shape anymore – not since that time Scout decided to “help” Sniper pimp it out and made even worse when Pyro apprehended the gas tank for some incendiary experiment that nearly blew out the whole base in a massive fireball. While the van had since then been repaired to some degree, not even Sniper would trust it for a long-distance drive any more.

After those incidents, Engineer had made certain that no one would be able to tamper with her truck, so they still had that and after she had it unlocked and the rocket launchers deactivated the team got to work on arranging the seating. Most of them would obviously have to ride on the bed of the truck so they secured an assortment of straps and bungee cords to the sides as makeshift seatbelts.

There were three seats in the front of the truck though. The driver’s seat would have to go to the Engineer; she had rigged the ignition so that it required the gunslinger to start and she damn well wouldn’t hand the wheel over to anyone.

“Especially not Scout.” Engineer concluded, looking sternly at Scout.

“What! Wait, why the fuck can’t I drive? I drive like a champ. Like, the driver’s instructor was ready to worship the ground I walked on when I fuckin’ aced my test. Only reason I ain’t got the license is because the cops took it from me _for entirely unrelated reasons_.”

Engineer gave her a long look from behind her best pair of goggles.

  
“You know what Scout? For the sake of getting us all safely to the wedding you’re not going anywhere near the wheel. In the back with you.”

“Oh come ON!?”

Heavy followed immediately after Scout, reasoning that she would not sit comfortably in the front anyway – not with Boris in her lap anyway. So she clambered up, seated herself comfortable enough and strapped Boris securely to her bosom as if it was some kind of behemoth metal baby, before tying herself down.

Spy was just about to volunteer herself and Sniper’s tux (conveniently containing Sniper) for the front seat when Medic stepped up.

“Vell, I am certain zhat ve can all agree that a voman my age-”

  
Scout then leaned as far out from the truck bed as the straps would allow.

“Yo, doctor Frankenfanny, don’t give us that elderly citizen shit. I mean fucking hell but you run damn fast across the whole bloody map just for the chance to hack someone with a saw and cackling all the way so it’s not like you’ve gotten rheumatic or some shit yet.”

Medic coughed and gave Scout a look that promised a great deal of friendly fire at the next given opportunity.

“As I was saying, I think ve can all agree that considering my seniority I can call dibs on the passenger seat.”

Well, there went the opportunity to save the tux from the dust of the road. The musical chair game had shrunk down to one seat of relative luxury to be fought over by five mercenaries of questionable sanity and knowing Engineer she’d give special treatment to the little arsonist if given half a chance. Spy delicately cleared her throat and took on her most winning smile.

“Ladies, as charming as it would be to be strapped to an unwashed lorry with the rest of you, I’m afraid I- Where are you going!?” The last was an undignified squawk as the remaining four team members – Soldier, Demo, Pyro and Sniper – lined up to join Scout and Heavy. Sniper was the first to acknowledge Spy.

“’S not the whole world if we don’t get front seat Spook” she said as she helped to hoist Soldier up.

“A real soldier is not squeamish about discomforts! I had to run for miles through six feet high snow in 40 degrees below zero and heavy rain to take out a fortified machine-gun nest!”

Engineer, who had just opened the door at the driver’s side, turned to give Soldier an exasperated look over the truck bed.

“Solly, it doesn’t rain in 40 degrees below-”

“AND I had to run uphill the whole way!”

Soldier glared defiantly at Engineer while Demo merrily gave Pyro a leg up.

“Anyway, the real party is always in the backseat, right Pyro?”

“Hrrhhs!” Pyro cheered as she gracelessly crawled up, and after getting tied in happily accepted the bottle of “scrumpy deluxe” that Demo plucked from her modded bandolier. She unearthed a childishly twisted straw from somewhere and maneuvered it to fit between the bottle and a tiny vent in the gasmask.

Spy, who had prepared a very nice reason why she and no one else should obtain the coveted seat, felt utterly betrayed by the lack of covet displayed by her teammates and slammed the passenger side door closed.

* * *

Naturally, just because Spy wanted to get going someone in the team had to slow them down.

“Solly, be reasonable. Everyone else is using a seatbelt and I’m going to drive on the highway.”

“I DO NOT NEED TO BE TIED DOWN TO HOLD MY BALANCE!”

Spy could not see Soldier from where she was sitting, but if the woman was not standing up with her arms crossed then Spy would eat her own suit jacket.

“Leetle Soldier should at least sit down and be still.”

“Yeah, hey, you guys think she’ll still respawn at the base if she falls off the truck and faceplants on a rock or something? ‘Cus the other Scout said something about there being a limit to how far the respawn can reach and that’s why the battleground’s a limited space but I’m almost certain he was just making shit up but what if he wasn’t and Solly’d be permadead? Hey, you think we could have her replaced with cock-Solly’s wife then?”

Soldier’s offended screeching about being replaced by a civilian was cut off by Medic who leaned over Spy to shout through the window while waving about a small anonymous bottle with a clear fluid sloshing inside.

“Fraulein Scout! Vould you desist on referring to our counterparts with genitalia? It is immature and if you persist I vill have your mouth vashed vith _hand sanitizer_!”

After a lot of needling and pleading Engineer finally gave up on mollycoddling Soldier and got the engine going. Apparently this was Soldier’s cue to hold a speech.

“Ladies! We are now about to witness a ceremony that will demand from its participants more bravery, cunning and teamwork than any other operation, war or Halloween! Some of you, particularly Scout, may not have the guts to witness such dedication without weeping like an infant, and that is fine.”

At that moment, Engineer drove up on the ill-maintained excuse for a road and there was a resounding “clong”, presumably from Soldier’s helmet hitting the bed of the truck together with the rest of Soldier.

The rest of Soldier’s speech was mostly drowned out by the wind and occasional scuffles. At one point Spy imagined that she heard something about Queen Elizabeth and rocket-launched orphans, but dismissed it. By the time Engineer slowed down to maneuver around what appeared to be a blast crater in the road Soldier was still going strong.

“And always remember girls, no matter what temptations will befall you or what fantasies of some watered down civilian life befalls you during this ceremony – YOU ARE BEST OF THE BEST! That means we stay and we fight when others step back. For our nation we sacrifice our comfort so that others can sleep safely!”

“Solly, I can’t say about you but I was hired to blow people into tiny bloody pieces in a desert, and I’m pretty sure we don’t even have that left any more. Last couple of months I’ve been blowing you guys up just to check that respawn still works.”

“Don’t forget the coyote you and Snipes fed dynamite to though.”

“MY POINT IS, that we should learn from the mighty mantis and emasculate our partners with our teeth instead of settling down like some-”

Engie stepped on the gas and whatever Soldier was about to say disappeared into a disgraced shriek, followed by some kind of ruckus in the truck bed. Medic scuffed and crossed her arms.

“Only Soldier could hatch such a harebrained idea. Emasculation through biting, I’ve never heard such nonsense.”

Engineer gave her a sideways glance, both of them ignoring the thumping from the back of the truck.

“Well, I think Solly has been a bit, ah, strung up because her counterpart got something she doesn’t. She said almost the exact same thing when she heard about those new boots remember?”

There was a lot of swearing in the back now.

“That really is no excuse! Biting, honestly, gardening shears vill do the job just fine. I used to have a very interesting collection back in the day.”

“Doc, I mean no offence but you do know that those can be reused if you just leave them where they are, attached to the bloke, right?”

There was a resounding bang that indicated that Scout had brought out her bat and attacked the truck with it.

“YO, FRONT SEAT! SOLLY FELL ON PYRO’S AXE AND IS BLEEDING ALL OVER US BACK HERE! STOP THE FUCKING TRUCK ALREADY!”

The truck came to a screeching halt, prompting more swearing, and in the blink of an eye Engineer and Medic had rushed out to see to Soldier. Spy lit her fifth cigarette of the day and took a deep calming drag.

* * *

By the time they reached the rickety old barn outside of which the wedding would take place Soldier had been forcefully tied up and secured to the truck, most of the scrumpy deluxe had been consumed by the truck bed passengers and Medic had regaled the front seat with more gruesome medical jokes than Spy ever wanted to know existed. The whole team was in different states of sweaty, dusty and bloody.

The place looked a bit like the Harvest battleground, except smaller and decorated with a scattering of flowers and bows in white, red and blue. Evidence such as bullet holes, small craters in the ground, the ragged appearance of the RED mercs and the still-burning police car further up the road indicated that the stag party must have been quite a spectacle in itself. Miss Pauling was engrossed in making phone calls next to a second, partially dismantled police car.

As far as Spy could make out, their counterparts had even managed to somehow get Merasmus to play the part of the priest, judging by the stole and, yes, he even had a clerical collar poking out of the robes. He didn’t appear to appreciate the honor, if the scowl was anything to go on, but the groom was holding a rocket launcher at the ready and the wizard’s skull hat was adorned with sticky bombs. Next to the groom was RED Demo, looking disturbingly sober.

The whole place was littered with raccoons.

Engineer, after ushering her teammates off the truck and reactivating its defenses, joined RED Engineer in setting up a semi-circle of dispensers around the wedding area. Spy was silently grateful for their foresight; the nearest respawn was quite far away and she didn’t feel like taking chances. One dispenser was allotted the duty of makeshift altar.

The RED and FEM teams mingled in front of the barn with the casual air of two sometimes-enemies smelling cake at the end of a joint operation. The Pyros more or less instantly congregated in mumbles and sign language and the others were happy to leave them to whatever fantasies of arson made them giggle like that.

The Scouts, similarly, were too alike to be anywhere but in each other’s faces – except they were competing in insults and looked more like they were on the verge of brawling. Spy dearly hoped that there’d be a designated children’s table for both Pyros and Scouts later.

The RED Spy and Sniper stood predictably to the side in the background and as FEM Spy walked up to them she observed that they were as dusty as FEM Sniper’s now ruined tux, with scuffs on their clothes and, in RED Spy’s case, a few inconspicuous splatters of blood on his sleeve. She greeted them with a puff of smoke.

“Gentlemen. You look…” she made a show of eyeing them up and down “… quite as I would have expected.”

RED Sniper looked between them with a wary look on his face.

“Roight, while you do your psycho-flirting thing, I’ll be over there.”

  
RED Spy took a deep drag of his own cigarette.

“And I notice most of your team is quite covered in blood. I assume you’ve had an eventful journey.”

“Soldier had an accident with Pyro’s axe. Why the two ruined police cars?”

“We couldn’t fit everyone into the first.”

There wasn’t a whole lot to say between them that were not either too big or too small for the occasion, and not a whole lot to do with the rest of the two teams so close by. They traded quips and smoked until Miss Pauling moved over towards the barn, at which point they agreed to herd their respective Snipers back into the group before the wedding began.

While Spy did know some Russian customs, and had not forgotten the bride’s nationality, she had not fully considered how the mix of American and Russian traditions would play out during this particular wedding. The traditional bridenapping by the bride’s family had entirely slipper her mind until she heard the characteristic sound of a minigun revving up.

From behind the barn jogged the RED Heavy, three slightly younger women and one elder woman, all of them – including the Heavy – dressed as brides, armed and shouting at the top of their lungs.

Spy did the only sensible thing and ducked behind the nearest dispenser, dragging Sniper with her. A few feet away the FEM Heavy had already moved to stand in front of Medic in what had to be an instinctual maneuver by now. Judging by the shouts and curses the rest of the mercenaries had gotten into gear as well. From behind she could hear the tell-tale whirrs of machinery as the smallest truck sentries were activated.

Spy barely noticed that she was holding her gun until she turned to see Sniper already taking aim around the dispenser.

“Bloody hell Spook, you wouldn’t have any idea what this is about? Why the blooming hell is their Heavy wearing a wedding gown?”

“Bridenapping?” Spy offered, and then thought a little more on it. “Hopefully bridenapping. It’s a Russian wedding tradition, mostly humorous and theatrical.”

Sniper swore and crouched lower as a spray of bullets tore up grass just inches away.

“The bullets are damn well NOT theatrical Spook and I’m not laughing!”

“Just aim for body shots and we’ll see what ‘appens. Don’t give me zhat look; no one would zhink less of you for it.”

Before Sniper could string together a retort Spy decided it was time to cloak and take a look at the fight up from a better viewpoint, skirting around to avoid the wide sprays of assorted projectiles.

Predictable, other than the RED Heavy and Soldier the event had turned into an all-out everyone against everyone fight and the FEM Scout’s back was already a pincushion of syringes. Reassuringly, most of the combatants seemed to take the lack of respawn into consideration. Some kind of hasty truce must have been made between the two Soldiers, as the RED now had two rocket launchers while FEM Soldier was running all over the place wielding her shovel, occasionally dueling with either Demo when they crossed paths.

Now she could also make out the roles within the brides’ party. The older, plumper woman carried a large platter of sandwiches and chocolate bars. One of the younger, with square face and short hair, was hauling an oversized first aid bag. The remaining two, a brunette and a blonde, carried shotguns. Spy was quite certain that the brunette with the shotgun was the real bride. For one thing, her dress looked to be of genuine quality and fit. For another, she only had eyes for the RED Soldier.

And she was the only one wearing a necklace made out of human ears.

* * *

The battle was chaotic and disorienting without its usual team dynamics. It was not like children playing a game in contrast to their usual battles, because Spy _remembered_ being a child once and there’s no creature on earth so completely anal about game rules as a child, even if the rules are all made up and nonsensical. It was chaotic because it was adults pretending to do something like they _imagined_ children playing a game would, except with copious amounts of weaponry.

Ironically, the two mercenaries that verifiably slept in unicorn footie pajamas didn’t even seem to notice what was going on, too preoccupied with sprinkling scrumpy over a corner of the barn with worrying determination. Just as Spy was contemplating her priorities (removing lighters, matchboxes and flamethrowers from the Pyros before or after finding RED Spy and give him just a little stab in that perfectly little behind of his) RED Engineer came running and did that Team Parent thing, neatly solving at least that problem.

For better or worse, depending on whether you had just poked someone with a knife or were looking for retaliation, the battle was also brief. When the RED Soldier ran out of rockets and the RED Heavy ran out of bullets they charged straight into a wrestling match that would have been the death of the RED Soldier if the bride hadn’t smacked the butt of her shotgun over the RED Heavy’s head and claimed the RED Soldier as her price. Or something, far be it from Spy to endeavor to analyze the reasoning of a woman who willingly married a Soldier.

Miss Pauling helpfully alerted the combatants of the ceasefire by clanging together an apprehended aluminum bat and a frying pan until she had their attention. The Medics and the square-faced faux-bride briskly walked from one mercenary to another, the wrestling Scouts were detangled and the Pyros were ordered to put out at least the more sizeable fires they had started on the decorations already in the brief time since RED Engineer had interrupted their barn-burning experiment. FEM Engineer deactivated her truck and Merasmus was dragged out of the barn where he had been sitting out the ruckus.

Miraculously, no one and not even a single raccoon had been killed and the group soon arranged itself into something resembling a wedding scene, albeit one where the groom was held upright by his best man and the bride (Sandra? Shanna? Oh well, she’d find out soon enough) just within reach of the dispenser-altar’s healing beam.

Aside from a few unorthodox remarks by Merasmus, the ceremony was quite nice. Spy was fairly certain that he was cursing the rings instead of blessing them, but as far as she could tell it was a fairly harmless “may you suffer each other’s horrible company for the rest of your wretched lives” kind of curse. FEM Soldier made some abhorrent snivelling sound from behind the cloth she normally used to clean her weapons.

“Every child knows that the wedding ring goes on the _right_ hand.”

“And every red-blooded American knows that the right hand is the left! I have done extensive research on this, right Merasmus!”

“Really, all he did was ask the mousy woman in purple over there.”

“Dammit Merasmus, I will not tolerate tattling on my wedding!”

RED Soldier made to grab for the wizard but the bride, with her chest inflated to the point that Spy imagined she could hear the seams creak in agony, clutched his shoulder and said in his ear so low and clear that everyone heard it:

“But mousy woman in purple is not getting married today, and the right hand would not be called the right hand if it wasn’t the right hand for the ring, yes?”

And while Spy certainly didn’t envy the RED Soldier for anything, she just might have gone a little weak in her knees for just a moment.

Spy did recall the orthodox tradition of crowning the couple to marry and parading them around the church, a nice symbolic ritual that allowed the wedding couple to look like royals for a while. Some compromises had obviously been done here, but she couldn’t stop smiling at the sight of the two being crowned with matching softcaps that both emitted an unusual glow. It fitted them, even though RED Soldier looked more ridiculous than ever with the softcap piled upon his helmet.

While the bride and groom were busy giving each other dopey smiles, Merasmus leafed through a small pile of cards, looked out over the emotionally touched but increasingly hungry mercenaries, and seemed to make a decision that Spy was entirely in favor of: skipping the long-winded speeches. 

“Are the two of entirely and explicitly certain that you want to marry each other?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!”

“Duly noted. I hereby pronounce you husband and wife; you may kiss and start the party.”

And so they did, with gusto and enthusiasm to the point where they barely detached from each other’s face when Zhanna promptly lifted her husband to carry him towards the cake table hidden away behind the barn. The mercenaries and the RED Heavy’s family filed in after them in high spirits.

**Author's Note:**

> Where is the BLU team? I have no idea, the fic was written in December 2014 and I unearthed it for reposting in 2020.


End file.
